Using to Storytelling to Position Your [Products] Like a Pro (Part 3)
Before we dive in, a reminder from Part 1. Your basic story structure includes:
Three three forces in a story (not all of the forces are characters): The main character, the guide, and villain (often a challenge or a problem to solve - for consumer brands, the villain is rarely a person). Generally, all forces come together to tell a story in the following structure:https://open.substack.com/pub/bitesizedconsumergoods/p/how-to-use-storytelling-to-position?r=2dnql4&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Opening: provides your reader context for the situation - all forces are introduced
Friction: This is where the main character takes on the villain, they may struggle, fail at first, or avoid conflict until they find support from the guide
Resolution: This is where the main character thanks the guide, and rides off into the sunset (or is set up to continue on the journey on their own).
The storytelling doesn’t stop after you’ve crafted your brand’s origin story and the story of your brand values.
If your brand has more than one SKU, you’ll want to tell the story of each specific product. What I call a Reason for Being Story.
Where it shows up in your content: On your offer or product page, in snippets in social media posts, press outreach.
This story type is a bit different from your brand origin story. First, It is more focused on a specific offer (if you have more than one) and features your product or service. Second, It should be shorter than your brand origin story. And Third, you need more than one (one story per offering).
This will look a bit different for product vs service based businesses. For products - we’ll use greeting cards as an example - you can have one per item category (greeting cards versus coffee mugs) but may want to consider one per sentiment category (your story on sympathy cards may not be the same as birthday cards). This is helpful for both product pages and also pitching press! These stories can also help diversify revenue streams as well.
Opening: You can take a few routes to opening an offer specific story, but it should only be a sentence or two. You can invite your audience in by asking a question or positing a scenario that they may find themselves in. Or you can highlight how you identified a gap in the current market as something that needed to be filled. In our greeting card example, you could either posit that your audience is in the market for a more lighthearted take on sympathy card or talk about how you personally were looking for a sympathy card for a friend with a specific sense of humor.
Friction: After you set up the scenario, explain the specific problem you’re addressing. You want to avoid pointing to specific competitors or other companies in the market, but you can mention what they’re missing. If you’re selling a book on knitting for example, you might point out that it can be challenging to follow knitting patterns without visual support. Or mention that existing tutorials often leave out [insert complaint your product addresses]. This sets up your offering as something that stands out, while also convincing your audience that what you’re selling is something they need.
Resolution: Explain the benefit your offer brings to your audience. Good news is that you can (and should!) flip back to your list of features and benefits and incorporate those into your Reason for Being stories. They may not all apply to every offer, but tying your brand benefit to your offer helps strengthen your brand and ties your offers together. You should end this story with a call to action (which may vary depending on where it’s published) directing people where to buy. You’ve spent all this time getting your audience to consider your product, so don’t forget to close the sale!
Next, I’m sharing the final story you should have ready to go for your brand: your Sales Pitch.